Percussion kits and drum sets
A percussion kit is a collection of unpitched percussion instruments that are played by a single player. Drum sets are a particular type of percussion kit that are often used in pop and rock music.
In this documentation, we use “percussion kit” to refer to both percussion kits and drum sets.
In Dorico Pro, you can present percussion kits in different ways, including as a five-line staff and as a grid. If you want percussion kits to behave as drum sets, you can define them as drum sets. For example, there are options on the Percussion page in Notation Options for handling voices that only apply to drum sets.
You can add percussion kits to projects in the following ways:
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Add percussion kits to players in the same way as adding instruments.
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Combine existing unpitched percussion instruments held by a single player into kits.
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Add empty kits to players, to which you can then add unpitched percussion instruments.
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Import existing kits you have previously exported and saved.
You can move percussion instruments between players without affecting any music already added to that instrument. If the instrument you want to move is combined into a percussion kit, you must first remove the instrument from the kit before you can move it to another player.
You can change individual percussion instruments like any other instrument. However, you can only change unpitched percussion instruments to other unpitched percussion instruments, and you can only change the percussion instruments in kits within the Edit Percussion Kit dialog.
Percussion kit instrument labels appear green in the Players panel in Setup mode.
You can create and edit percussion kits in the Edit Instruments dialog and make your changes available in all future projects on your computer.